Memories: Needful

She loved the sound of the crickets. They didn’t begin singing until late summer, and as soon as she heard their chirping chorus at twilight, the sound was immediately familiar and comforting. And then she would think about how nobody seemed to talk about missing the crickets’ song in the winter or spring, as if it were normal not to hear it. The crickets made her think of autumn, for that was the season when they would sing day and night, loudest of all, and she could picture golden fields of wheat, ready for harvesting. Or buckets of ripe, red apples under a golden-leafed maple tree, with local children gathered around in their sweaters and coats. For the air would be brisk and biting, but the sun was still warm and the grass still lush. These thoughts paddled lazily through her mind as she lay in her bed with her hands folded onto her belly, and the crickets sang in the velvet darkness outside.

It took a few minutes of hearing the peculiar noise to realize that it wasn’t a particularly loud and off-key cricket. It was a floorboard downstairs in the farm house, creaking over and over, a minute or so apart. The girl’s eyes opened and stared at the ceiling. Her father had gone away to help with a neighbor’s harvest, and would not return for several more days. Had someone snuck into their home in his absence?

This thought sent the girl upright like a shot. She threw back the coverlet and stood on her bare feet, padding to the bedroom door to listen again.

Creak.

In the upstairs hall, she looked towards Emory’s room. His door was closed. Her eyes swept to the opposite direction. The door to her parent’s bedroom stood open. At first, there was a prick of alarm. Had her mother gone looking for the source of the sound, too? But almost as quickly, her brain shuffled the pieces together, and the panic subsided. It must be her mother’s own feet, making the floor creak below.

The girl descended the wooden stairs smoothly, her bare toes whispering under her long night shift. “Ma?” she called softly.

Immediately, a familiar shadow appeared in the kitchen doorway, lit from behind by the candle on the table. “Taitey?” A woman stepped into view. Rather short, as most Bree women were, with brown hair pulled into a loose bun, and lines around her eyes and mouth that betrayed her as a farmer’s wife who had spent a lifetime working under the sun. “What are you doing awake?”

“You’re making the floor creak,” came the reply. The girl smiled as she spoke. Her words were not a complaint, but an honest truth.

Her mother looked back into the kitchen, knowing precisely which plank was the culprit. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she chuckled. “Oi! I’m sorry! I didn’t think you could hear it all the way upstairs.”

“Aye,” said her daughter, giving a little chortle of her own. “Only because I were awake anyway. Why aren’t you sleeping?” She stepped over to her mother and slid an arm around the woman’s soft middle.

The embrace was returned, an arm looped over the girl’s shoulders. “Ah, I couldn’t sleep without your Pa here, I guess. It’s too quiet. You’d think that were a good thing, aye? But nay! I need to hear a little snoring from him, so I can go to sleep.” She laughed again, a mellow, rich sound. “I guess you could say I’m a little needful of him. Something just feels off when he’s not here.”

“Aww, Ma,” the girl crooned sympathetically, giving her mother’s waist a squeeze. “I’ll wager he’s not sleeping tonight, either. I’ll wager he’s needful of you, too.”

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There were no crickets singing yet. It was only June. The night was not silent; there were bullfrogs snapping by the pond, and birds that had the gall to twitter sleepily in the trees, even in the dead of night. But no crickets.

The woman lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, with her hands folded over her belly. Her mother’s voice was echoing faintly at the back of her thoughts. She could still picture the memory as clearly as if it were being pantomimed in front of her. Something ached softly, deep in her gut, to think that she would never see, or speak to, or hold her mother again.

This sensation was followed by another. At first, it was a yearning for comfort, in the shadow of the sadness brought on by the memory. She looked at her bedroom door. It was cracked open. She did this sometimes in the middle of the night, as Pumpkin liked to prowl the house without being hindered by pesky, closed doors. There was a thin line of golden light coming in from the main room of the Boarding House. She always left a candle burning on a high shelf, where it could not get knocked over by a certain, curious cat.

He would have understood how she felt about the memory. The bittersweet ache that was simultaneously thankful she had experienced it, and grieved that it was long ago and never again to be repeated. From there, her thoughts slipped backwards through the previous hours of the evening. Their slow, lazy walk home. He never rushed her along. He never minded dragging his own pace to match hers. His face was clouded as they walked under the rising moon, and then as they sat beside the pond. She didn’t mind the shadow on his features. It did not diminish his handsomeness. It made her curious to know his mind, to hear his thoughts, to understand him better.

Was he asleep now? Her fingers twitched on her stomach. At times, she fancied that he might be able to sense her own thoughts in turn, to hear her inner musings. If he slumbered now, would he waken if she wished for it earnestly? She could almost see him, coming to the doorway. A tall, broad, dark shape, backlit by the candlelight. His big hand slowly pressing the door open. “You called?” She could hear his voice so clearly in her imagination. Yes, she thinks to herself. I called…boy, did I ever call you...

Her heart is pounding now. She smiles up at the ceiling, then chuckles out through her nose.

Pumpkin chirrups from the floor beside her bed. Predictably, the little cat leaps up next, after announcing herself, and pads over to sniff about the woman’s cheek and hair.

“Aye, Pumpkin,” whispers Taite, moving her hand to lightly run a knuckle over the cat’s spine. “I guess I’m needful of him, too, after all.”